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[G-Flex]

Tap your gorilla!

No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No.

[Askot Bokbondeler]

Who killed video games?

note: this article has several pages, or "chapters". i only noticed that after a comment pointed it out

[freeformschooler]

Two important articles on the gaming industry:

Who killed video games?

Review of The Sims Social

(Note: I highly recommend reading them in this order)

Both of these are excellent reading. Even if you care less about the subject than other stuff in this thread. Which, of course, I don't.

[kaijyuu]

Damn, they are.

In my mind, video games are a storytelling medium, much like books or movies or plays or what have you. However, video game's biggest strength (interactivity) allows for an emotional response without storytelling elements. Specifically, a false sense of accomplishment. Then here comes along some smart (read: evil) people who figure out how to make people keep spending money to keep getting that sense of accomplishment. Storytelling elements are marginalized to the point where they only give context; you're on a farm in farmville, but nothing about the game requires it to be a farm. The creativity behind video games becomes nuked, and all you have left is numbers, more numbers, and some graphic design to represent those numbers, all in an effort to milk money out of players.

I'm optimistic, though; I'm confident that these "games" will continue to exist, but so will games that are actually art too. Games can produce far more emotional responses than simple accomplishment, and people will continue making games that do just that.

Maybe we should distinguish games that only exist as operant conditioning to continue to spend money, from the games that exist to convey a message or experience.

[freeformschooler]

On the seperate end of things, you have the video games that evoke emotional responses and a fake sense of accomplishment without ever telling you that you could pay a dime for them past the initial price. These are the ones that you've already paid fifty or sixty dollars on and now want to sit down and get enjoyment out of. I'm talking the Castlevania, or Zelda, or, heck, even Soul Calibur. They evoke an emotional response because you have genuinely enjoyed the action and result of pushing nigh infinite amounts of buttons. The sense of achievement doesn't need to be explained. It follows right along with the emotional response, because it is in some ways an emotional response.

The skinner box games are just the opposite end of whatever spectrum we're choosing to put these two on. There is no major emotional response (usually), but there is a significant sense of achievement, because it's presented to you right on your screen. "Look, buddy. You achieved something!" And so you feel that you did. That's alright, though, because the target demographic - the ones who will be absolutely absorbed by the game - will not stop to examine it. These games are not inherently evil, but the motives behind them are dubious at best.

[Vector]

Right--I realized that this is really one of the reasons why I like games like Metal Gear Solid, or Portal, or Braid, or heck--even the middle games of the Final Fantasy history (as well as Harvest Moon 64 and Pokemon Puzzle League, which for unknown reasons have made particularly deep marks on my psyche).  Thinking back on them, I never felt jittery, or like I was doing this sort of Skinner-boxing.  I'd always think back on them with things like "Hmm, I wonder what [insert character here] has to say, or what they'd do if I [insert something here]."

Of course, I also assaulted all the people and animals I could find with farming implements and frequently got wildly drunk, just to see what would happen, so I guess that says something about me, too =/  I did grow out of that eventually, though.

On the other hand, what interests me about this is much similar to what interests me about the differences in American and Japanese comics.  I haven't been around much, but it seems that there is a fundamental philosophical distinction between the two major game-designing countries.

I guess I should add now that I know from people who work in the field (I'm not saying anything here in order to protect the particular person and their career) that this sort of "gameification" is a key part of website design nowadays.  Social networking sites that have a sort of "completion bar" at the top of the screen, which won't go away unless you "finish" filling out your profile.  That sort of thing.  People advocating more game theory carrots and sticks in classrooms in order to "improve" education, when what we need is fewer of these incentives.  They mask the real reason to learn and study behind an ever-increasing array of artificial goals and production standards.

Feh, I dunno.  There's got to be a better way to proceed.

[G-Flex]

People advocating more game theory carrots and sticks in classrooms in order to "improve" education, when what we need is fewer of these incentives.  They mask the real reason to learn and study behind an ever-increasing array of artificial goals and production standards.

Feh, I dunno.  There's got to be a better way to proceed.

I think skinner-boxing is just getting a resurgence in popularity because people are realizing how well it works in certain contexts (video games). Hopefully, it won't last.


Regarding video games, I think it's too diverse a medium to really discuss what it's "supposed to be". It's great a storytelling, but that doesn't make it a "storytelling medium" any more than film being good at making people want to buy stereos makes film an "advertising medium". The key facet of video games — that which defines what they are — is the interactive element, which can be used for all kinds of purposes in addition to its other, more incidental elements, like the visual/audio artistry involved or narrative content. Super Mario Bros., Asteroids, that weird N64 chess game with the animated characters, Chip's Challenge, Final Fantasy VI, and point-and-click adventure games are all valid and uses for the medium, and nobody gets anywhere in a medium by arguing about what it's "supposed to be" instead of what works. This is why people like Roger Ebert have all kinds of trouble understanding video games as an art form, and why people arguing against that point of view usually don't usually make much headway: They don't realize that what's important is what makes video games video games, and why that in itself is important and valuable.

[ChairmanPoo]

Tap your gorilla!

No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No.

Spoiler: DO THE MONKEY WITH ME (click to show/hide)

[kaijyuu]

Regarding video games, I think it's too diverse a medium to really discuss what it's "supposed to be". It's great a storytelling, but that doesn't make it a "storytelling medium" any more than film being good at making people want to buy stereos makes film an "advertising medium".

I'm probably splitting hairs here, but here goes.

You'll be hard pressed to find a game that doesn't either A) have the player act out a story written by the designer, or B) give the player opportunity to act out their own story.

Examples of A are obvious, but examples of B are (almost) every other game in existence. Dwarf fortress for example has no set narrative, but as that one new york times article says,

Tarn envisions Dwarf Fortress, by contrast, as an open-ended “story generator.” He and Zach grew up playing computer games with notebooks in hand, drawing their own renditions of the randomly generated creatures they encountered and logging their journeys in detail. Dwarf Fortress, which never unfolds the same way twice, takes that spirit of supple, fully engaged play to the extreme.

Even games like farmville, where the storytelling elements only exist to give context, has some sort of narrative, either player or designer defined. You're a farmer, wanting to build a bigger farm. Not the greatest story, of course, but still follows the definition of a story: there's conflict and a drive for resolution. Even the most mundane games need their excuse plots.


Now, there do exist games with absolutely 0 non-meta storytelling elements whatsoever. The example I usually give for this is tetris. There's no reason for the blocks to be falling, nor a reason for them to disappear. As far as we know the blocks are just abstract representations of... something. Maybe the rise and fall of soviet union.


So you'd be correct in saying storytelling is not completely intrinsic to the medium, but it permeates the vast, vast majority of games. Only things on the very top of this exist without story (and honestly I'd put tetris above pong, as pong has at least context).

You'll also be correct to say that story "isn't the point" of many, many games. They may have an excuse plot, but it just exists to support what really matters. To that I'll say there exist films (and other things) where story "isn't the point," either. Look at cheesy action flicks, where the viewers are simply there for an adrenaline rush, not because they care about character interaction or anything. Does that mean films aren't a "storytelling medium," because there exist films where storytelling isn't the focus? I don't think so. Nor do I think video games not a "storytelling medium" because there exist games where story isn't the focus.

[Vector]

Story permeates everything, though.  The same argument can be used for everything that permits diachronic perception of time, rather than merely synchronic--and the synchronic stuff takes place in a cultural dialogue, which provides the diachronic elements.

So yeah, everything is story.  That means story is utterly fundamental, more powerful than we imagined, or it means that we should stop saying "ooh, it has a story!" and instead say "but is the story actually one I want to be engaged in?"

[kaijyuu]

So yeah, everything is story.  That means story is utterly fundamental, more powerful than we imagined, or it means that we should stop saying "ooh, it has a story!" and instead say "but is the story actually one I want to be engaged in?"

It means both


I quite fundamentally disagree with mr. John Carmack's quote about video game storytelling here:

Story in a game is like a story in a porn movie. It's expected to be there, but it's not that important.

(And for the record, I disagree with it about porn, too I get bored easily of a pizza boy delivering a single hot sausage)

There needs to be reason to your actions as a player for it to have any weight whatsoever. Narrative is the easiest way to do this; even excuse plots actually give a good excuse for shooting those aliens. You generally dislike them, maybe 'cause they're ugly or because they're about to eat you or because they ate that one NPC you liked. Point is, you still care more about shooting them if you've a reason to than you don't. I'd argue a lot more. Story's expected to be there because shooting boxes isn't engaging; shooting guys you really don't like is. Even with identical gameplay mechanics, the two theoretical games (shooting boxes and shooting aliens) are leagues different. If you don't care about shooting those bad guys, the game no longer has a "story that you want to be engaged in" and thus fails in that aspect, and quite probably fails at being a good game as well.


EDIT: Woah, now that I think about it, weird tangent to go on in this thread. I could rant forever on game design subjects but I dunno if it fits here. Oh well.

[SalmonGod]

I don't think games have to have a story, unless you get really abstract in your definition of a story (chess?).  They can also have really shallow stories and still be fun.

But I also think video games have the best potential as a powerful storytelling medium, being a conglomeration of every other medium + interactivity.

[Vector]

Even football has a story, after all.  Wasn't it based off of trench warfare?

[Gunner-Chan]

A game can be story-lite and fun. Most Rougelikes, early FPS games and well arcade games don't need big expansive storytelling. In fact some Rougelikes for instance are worse for trying to hold to a more traditonal narrative, ADOM for instance is a bit stale just because you're always doing the same things the same way in the very start. And a bad story is worse than a bare bones one for enjoyment to me honestly.

[Vector]

Yeah, that's true.  I used to play a lot of the Space Invaders remake, in my youth